Mainly Norfolk: English
Folk and Other Good Music

Twa Recruiting Sergeants

Gavin Greig collected the Old Recruiting Soldier Song in 1908
from John Wight. This is the longest of four versions of
The Recruiting Sergeants in volume 1 of the
Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection.

John Strachan of Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, sang List, Bonny Laddie
in a 1951 Peter Kennedy recording (BBC 21531) on the anthology
A Soldier's Life for Me
(The Folk Songs of Britain Volume 8; Caedmon 1961; Topic 1970).

Jeannie Robertson sang The Twa Recruiting Sergeants
in two recordings made by Hamish Henderson at the end of the 1950s
on her 1960 Collector album
Lord Donald
and on her 1984 Lismor album
Up the Dee and Doon the Don.
Hamish Henderson commented in the first album's sleeve notes:

A familiar figure of Scottish fairs and feeing markets in the old day was
the recruiting sergeant, strutting around and looking for likely recruits among
the greener-looking farm labourers. Once a lad had been cajoled—or
duped—into accepting the King's shilling, he was in the bag.

This song captures superbly the gallus swagger and coaxing blarney of the
Highland sergeant, reminding his quarry of the miserable “slavery”
job he can escape from, and flavouring the bait with a dash of martial glory.

Gavin Greig printed two fragments of The Twa Recruitin' Sergeants
in one of his articles in the Buchan Observer in 1911, but Jeannie's version
is the best and fullest to date.

The Exiles sang The Twa Recruiting Sergeants
in 1966 on their Topic album
Freedom, Come All Ye.
They commented in their sleeve notes:

At first glance this seems rather a jingoistic piece, and indeed Gavin Greig
in Folk-Song of the North East
prints a later version in which the chorus runs:

Queen Victoria commands us by land and sea.
It’s out over the hills and awa’ wi’ me.

Nevertheless, the recruiting sergeant, in the course of his exhortation,
contrives to catalogue at length the burdens of hard work, bad conditions and
greedy employers endured by the bothy workers of Scotland, whose song this is.
Our version is from the singing of Jeannie Robertson of Aberdeen.

Cilla Fisher and Artie Trezise sang Twa Recruitin' Sergeants
in 1978 on their album
For Foul Day and Fair.

Ray Fisher sang Twa Recruiting Sergeants,
accompanied by Martin Carthy on guitar and by John Kirkpatrick on melodeon,
in 1991 on her Saydisc CD
Traditional Songs of Scotland.
This track was also included in 2004 on the anthology of
folk songs and fiddle music from North East Scotland,
Where the Laverock Sings.
Ray commented in her original album's liner notes:

The farming communities of Scotland were a favourite haunt of the recruiting
officers of the leading regiments, such as in this case the Black Watch.
The technique they used was to remind the young farm hands of all the hardships
and restrictions that a life on the land entailed. Enlisting in the regiment
could also provide an escape route for those who had carelessly got their
sweetheart “wi' bairn”, as the song says in the final verse.
What it fails to say is that those same young men could be blown to smithereens
any day of the week if they decided to enlist! Taken from the singing of
Jeannie Robertson.

Geordie Murison sang Twa Recruiting Sergeants,
at the Fife Traditional Singing Festival, Collessie, Fife, in May 2003 or
May 2004. This recording was included in 2005 on the festival CD
Here's a Health to the Company
(Old Songs & Bothy Ballads Volume 1).
The album liner notes commented:

It was the singing of Jeannie Robertson in the folk clubs of the 1960s that
brought this song to the wider public. Even before the 1745 Jacobite Uprising,
the government were using the fighting qualities of the Highlanders in British
regiments. Even so, they had to sometimes work hard to persuade the young lads
to sign up and take the King's shilling. The recruiting officer offered
adventure and a tempting escape from poverty, the hardships of work on the land
or from family responsibility.
Versions of the song date back to at least the early 1700s.

This video shows Iona Fyfe singing Twa Recruiting Sergeants
at the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year Final
in February 2017:

Lyrics

John Wight sings Old Recruiting Soldier Song

A recruiting soldier came frae the Black Watch to the markets,
And ever as some troops for it he did catch,
And aye as he listed some forty and twa,
Come out o'er the hills and far awa.

Chorus (after each verse):
I over the mountains and over the main,
Through Gibraltar, France, and Spain,
Queen Victoria commands us by land and by sea,
It's out over the hills and awa wi' me.

Now, ploughman lad, great is the danger you're in,
Your horse may scare and your owsen may rin,
The farmer will judge for to buy your penny fee,
So list, bonnie laddie, and come wi' me.

Now, my lad, if you chance to get a bairn,
We'll soon rid your hand of that.
And you need not pay a farthing of the law,
So list, bonnie laddie, and come awa.

A reeky fire and a rinnin'-oot pan,
Three little weans and a wife for to ban,
Three beats o' the drum will rid you o' that a,
So list, bonnie laddie, and come awa.

Ray Fisher sings Twa Recruiting Sergeants

O twa recruiting sergeants cam' fra the Black Watch
Thru' mairkets and fairms, some recruits for tae catch.
But a' that they 'listed was forty and twa',Sae list, bonnie laddie, and come awa'.

Chorus (after each verse):
For it's over the mountains and over the main
Thru' Giber-alter tae France and Spain.
Wi' a feather tae yer bunnet and a kilt abune yer knee
Sae list, bonnie laddie, and come awa' wi' me.